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Why Santorum Scares the Left

RUSH: Okay, we have some headlines that are in the Drive-By Media today. Most of them are about Santorum and how out of touch he is and how what a wacko he is and what a creep, what a fanatic. I had 'em set aside. I'll just run through the headlines here. ABC: "New Lows Among Conservatives Mark Romney’s Popularity Problem." This is an ABC News/Washington Post poll on Romney's plummeting popularity with conservative Republicans. From the Right Scoop: "Santorum: Romney Uniquely Unqualified to Take on President Obama." From the National Journal (they do The Hotline): "Santorum Argues for Religion in Government."

Let me tell you what this one springs from. Santorum read John Kennedy's religion speech in 1960 and said it made him wanna puke. I would not have said that it makes me want to "puke," but that's what Santorum said. Now, some people are saying that Santorum said he heard it. Santorum never said he heard the speech because he was only two-years-old. He read the speech and when he became familiar with it... It was Kennedy's famous speech. Back then, people were scared to death that the Pope -- when he was elected -- that the Catholics were elected. So Kennedy's speech was to allay their fears. And Kennedy said, there is no way any prelate is gonna be telling me what to do. There's no way I'm gonna calling any prelate and asking what to do.

The way Santorum interpreted Kennedy's speech was to say: "There is an absolute wall of separation of church and state, and nobody is gonna cross that line as long as I'm president. I'm not gonna cross it." Santorum said: I don't believe that. He thought Kennedy was saying that people of faith had no business in politics. Other people have read Kennedy's speech or heard it, and said, "That's not what he was saying. He was trying to assure people that he was not going to be bringing his faith and turning the Oval Office into St. Patrick's Cathedral. Kennedy was not gonna be doing that." Anyway, Santorum made the point that the speech made him want to puke, and so we got the headline in the National Journal: "Santorum Argues for Religion in Government."

This is the Washington Post, lead editorial: "Rick Santorum Shows He's the Wrong Man to be President." Eugene Robinson, Washington Post: Rick Santorum's Rhetoric Goes to the Extreme." Richard Cohen in the Washington Post: "Enough of Rick Santorum's Sermons." So the Drive-Bys are filled with stories. The State-Controlled Media is filled with stories today about what a lunatic fringe, religious wacko that Santorum is. (interruption) Snerdley's asking, "What Republicans do Richard Cohen and Eugene Robinson like?" They don't like any. That's not my point. Of course they don't like any Republicans. My point is they are scared. They are scared.

I don't know that they're scared that Santorum will win. They're frightened, they're scared to death about if he does win. They are just... Liberals do not like absolutes in anything. They don't like judgment, they don't like morality, they don't think anybody has the right to define it or to impose it or any of that. They're just scared, pure and simple. (interruption) What do they think will happen? They think if Santorum's elected president, that in five minutes abortion will be illegal and that they will be in jail. If you doubt me, remember the 1992 Clinton inaugural. The week before it, they had all these parties in Washington -- some of them outside on The Mall and -- and they had Aretha Franklin come and sing songs.

The musical theme one day was: We're outta jail; we have been released. Remember that? We have overcome. It was as though they had been in shackles under 12 years of Reagan and Bush and they've been set free. Freedom had finally come. They had all been let loose, is how they interpreted Clinton winning. So figuratively they think they're gonna be going back to jail. They think they're gonna have the condemnation and the wrath of the White House down on them, about how they live their lives. They're just worried. They're afraid that there will be a common morality. They're afraid that there will be definitions right and wrong. They're afraid that laissez-faire lifestyles go out the door, and they're afraid that that's what an election of somebody like Santorum would mean vis-a-vis where the American public happened to be.

Think it would be the end of gay marriage, the end of tolerance, the end of all these wonderful politically correct terms that they've come up with. They're literally scared. Remember, I told you the old story about Ron Silver, and they had a fly by of some jets and Ron Silver is flipping the jets off as they flew overhead and he's cursing them out. And somebody said, "Ron! Ron! Ron! Those are our jets now." "Oh, yeah." And Ron Silver -- God bless him, may he rest in peace, peace be upon him -- converted to Republicanism before he died.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Back to the sound bites now. Mika Brzezinski on Morning Joe today talking about this Operation Chaos, all the Democrats being urged to cross and vote for Santorum today. they're talking about the social issues And Mika doesn't quite understand what's going on here with the social issues. She and Mark Halperin have a conversation about it.

BRZEZINSKI: You guys follow these events closely, is there something we're missing? Is he being asked about these things and put in a bad position? Or is he literally going ahead with these issues on his own?

HALPERIN: I mean he says it often enough that the press stays on it and the press is obsessed with these things. But a more skillful candidate wouldn't say these things initially and if they occasionally did, they’d fix it. George Bush circa 1999, if he had the president's record to deal with and the conservative wing of his party to play off of, to look more centrist, this is a great situation for a strong candidate.

RUSH: Is there something we're missing? Why does he keep talking about the social issues? It's such a death knell, what am I missing? She's sensing something here, she doesn't know what it is. She doesn't know why Santorum's still breathing. She can't figure out why he still has a chance at winning anything. In the liberal Democrat world, this is your funeral talking about this stuff, basing a campaign is suicide. Social issues is suicide. Why does he keep talking about it? Because the Democrats keep bringing it up. They brought it up, he keeps getting questions about it. Mark Halperin again on Morning Joe, Scarborough said, "Are we gonna have a situation here where the Republican Party goes to him and grabs somebody and says you have no other choice at this point?" Meaning Romney.

HALPERIN: Michigan would be a huge blow. The danger for him is if he's blown out on Super Tuesday, which he could be, then I think the party has to get him out of the race. While he could win it, it'd be too ugly.

RUSH: Mark Halperin, TIME Magazine. If Romney loses Michigan and Super Tuesday, the party has to get him out of the race. Now, folks, as a keen observer here, go back six months. Can you ever imagine this question being asked, "If Romney loses Super Tuesday, the party's gotta get him out of the race?" The last guy anybody woulda thought that about. Here's Scarborough explaining to people what it is about Santorum that bothers them.

SCARBOROUGH: Rick Santorum is going out and telling people that we live in this brave new world where the freedom of religion is going to be challenged because -- I'm laughing -- the term "freedom of worship." What the hell's he talking about? We got 15% real unemployment, we've got a stagnant economy, real wages have been down since 1973, and he's playing semantic games that have absolutely no application to people in working-class Americans' day-to-day lives.

KELLER: Well, the thing you can say in defense of Rick Santorum is he actually means it.

SCARBOROUGH: There are people who believe that the anti-Christ is going to use the Trilateral Commission, Chuck Todd, to lead us all to Revelations. It's crazy.

RUSH: They know that Santorum believes it. That's what bugs 'em. He believes it. Oh, he really believes this stuff. And you look at the polling data and it's not Santorum's numbers that are falling. It's Obama's numbers that are falling. And, Joe, I would tell you, Obama's numbers are falling precisely because there's 15% real unemployment. Obama's numbers are falling because there is a stagnant economy. Obama's numbers are falling because real wages have been down since 1973. The American people don't need to be told this. They're living it. The Republican primary campaign does not have to exclusively be about the economy because everybody is living it, and everybody knows that Obama is faking the recovery and trying to turn it into a virtual dreamland, and it isn't flying.